We’ve collected the most frequently asked questions from our community about the Studyportals review system.

Reviews general overview

Ensuring quality of reviews

Responding to reviews

What are reviews?

Reviews general

> The reviews that you can find on Studyportals are personal assessments that students and alumni can leave regarding their student experience at a certain higher education institution. They are a combination of ratings and text descriptions. Through these reviews, we are addressing actual experiences from current students or alumni.

Who can write reviews?

> Current students or alumni of a university can leave a review on our portals. To respect students’ privacy, we also allow the option to leave a review anonymously.

How are reviews collected?

> We ask students and alumni that we’re in contact with to rate their experience in several areas. The way we get in touch with students is via multiple channels, such as institutions, via our ambassadors and directly through our portals.

What gets reviewed?

> Students and alumni can rate the institution, the programme, their social life (e.g. living costs), and their overall experience. Additionally, they can write specific comments about their experience.

Why is Studyportals showing reviews on its portals?

> Our research has shown that students want to know how other students experienced studying for a specific programme. This helps them to make a more informed choice based on their personal needs.

For universities, reviews can be a valuable opportunity to show and share more aspects of their institution and programmes, as well as receive direct, constructive feedback on their curricula and campus offers.

What determines the quality of a review?

Ensuring the quality of reviews

> We aim for the following criteria to make sure reviews are ready to be published:

Reviews have to include at least one of the four required areas: the institution, the program, social life or overall experience.

Text-wise, reviews should have a minimum length of 20 characters.

Reviewers should have studied at their institution with a maximum 5 years ago (as of today).

The respondent has agreed to the privacy terms regarding exposing their review on our portals, thus the review can get published.

Are there reviews that don't get published?

> Any written reviews may be checked by Studyportals before exposing, automatically or manually, because Studyportals wants to make sure only high-quality reviews are being exposed. We only remove reviews in the following situations:

In case Studyportals or another organisation or institution can prove a respondent did not study at the reviewed institution or program.

> Our users are active and engaged students who feel strongly about sharing their experience with others. They want to give back and contribute to the decision-making process of other students. Currently, most published reviews are positive regarding institutions or programmes.

We also have strict criteria put in place that helps us assess the quality of a review. If the criteria are not met, the review will not be published.

How does the review system work?

>We ask students to rate their experience based on a range of factors such as programme, institution, social life and overall experience.

We strive for high-quality reviews that help other student in their choice. This means comprehensive, relevant, and informative evaluations.

Approved and published ratings will appear on programmes and university pages alongside any extra comments which students share.

How are ratings calculated?

Responding to reviews

Can institutions reply to reviews?

> Yes, it’s possible for an institution to respond to a review on Studyportals. At this moment, you can do this by either contacting your Campaign Manager or by emailing us at reviews@studyportals.com. Send your reply via email and we will add it to a particular review.

When will my reply be published?

> Before we can publish your reply, the Reviews team will go over it. You can help us process your reply faster by making sure that:

Your reply does not exceed 750 characters

Your reply does not include contact details of the university (e.g. phone, email, address, etc.)

The content of the reply addresses the students’ concerns/feedback.

Will the student be notified that their review was replied?

> If the author of the review has agreed to be contacted by us, we will immediately email the student that their review has received a reply. In the cases when students indicated that they did not want to be contacted by Studyportals, we will not notify them by email.

Can a review be removed?

> If you believe a specific review misrepresents your institution or doesn't meet our policy, you can write to us at reviews@studyportals.com or contact your Campaign Manager. In case the review doesn’t meet our policy, it will be removed. In case we determine the review is in accordance with our policy, we will add your reply. We will personally inform you about the outcome in due time.

> The overall rating regarding an institution is based on the average star rating. A respondent can enter a star rating from one to five stars on different topics (where 1 is the lowest and 5 is the highest score). But the sum of overall rating divided by the amount of all these overall ratings is the average overall score. At least 10 students need to leave a rating before it’s calculated and exposed on our portals.

How can we be sure of the quality of review that you get from students?

Why Studyportals uses reviews; who writes them, and how they get approved

How are ratings calculated; what criteria we use to publish only relevant and helpful reviews

How you will be able to interact with reviews; what is our policy regarding low ratings and negative reviews

Do you publish negative reviews?

> Studyportals believes that peer reviews are instrumental for students to make better-informed choices about their education. In view of transparency, we choose to publish all complete reviews, regardless of the rating. If the rating itself is fairly low or expresses a negative opinion, the review content can be just as valuable for students, as well as for the institution itself.